Acosta’s book sheds real light on the West Wing funhouse. It explains how the 'enemy of the people' emerged as a mainstay of Trump’s lexicon ... Compared to its predecessors in the realm of the Trump exposé, The Enemy of the People lacks the acid-dripping punch of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury and Siege, the granularity of Bob Woodward’s Fear and the salaciousness of Stormy Daniels’ Full Disclosure ... Unfortunately, Acosta’s quotes and anecdotes are frequently sourced to unnamed White House officials and political insiders ... Acosta glides across well-tilled ground ... Acosta...fails to place the rage and resentment in the larger context of how America and the west reached this inflection point ... Trump still expects the media to bow, scrape and be co-opted. To give him his due, Acosta refuses to do that.
The Enemy of the People would have been a good place to ask why Trump has succeeded ... But Acosta used it as an opportunity to relitigate his spats with the White House rather than to meaningfully interrogate the cultural shift that left huge numbers of people despising and fearing the press ... Acosta sounds less like a reporter than a rival athlete ... Acosta has become a commentator, not a reporter ... Acosta has allowed Trump to set the terms of engagement. Trump paints the media as the opposition, and Acosta has accepted the mantle without wondering what he might be giving up in return.
Framing modern-day political journalism as a truth-vs.-Trump showdown, Acosta is forthrightly opinionated ... Fans of the author’s hard-hitting reporting will love it, but critics who have accused him of grandstanding and bias may not have their suspicions allayed.
